Inter Press Service: Revisiting the Journey to the Sustainable Development Goals
Felix Dodds, senior fellow at the Global Research Institute, senior affiliate at the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina, and associate fellow at the Tellus Institute

“…It is vital to remember that the [Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)] are a soft law agreement, meaning that governments are not legally required to deliver on the commitments. One of the promising additions to the monitoring process has been the recognition that parliaments can play a monitoring role on their executives in fulfilling their commitments. This could be through the use of parliamentary committees and perhaps an annual debate in countries’ parliaments on how national implementation is progressing. … Steering the course of global change to a just and sustainable future requires a concerted effort across all sectors. By providing a unifying agenda amidst enormous global diversity, the SDGs are providing the basis for potentially mounting a concerted movement for positive change. To achieve that outcome, the way in which major obstacles such as financing and accountability are overcome will make the difference in securing transformational change” (8/31).